Monday, April 03, 2017

Anderson Cooper anchored AC360 from the NYC studio in the 8pm and 9pmET hours.

From a long NY Times article titled, "CNN Had a Problem. Donald Trump Solved It.":

As Zucker sees it, his pro-Trump panelists are not just spokespeople for a worldview; they are "characters in a dram," members of CNN's ensemble cast. "Everybody says, 'Oh, I can't believe you have Jeffrey Lord or Kayleigh McEnany,' but you know what?" Zucker told me with some satisfaction. They know who Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany are."

This begs the question, Is CNN a news network or a Zucker produced drama?

2 comments:

On Monday's the panels were more palatable; they were smaller and no Jeffrey Lord or Kaleigh McEnany (at least in the first hour). The topic for the first segment was "Source: Allegation About Susan Rice Unmasking Improperly Is "False"". Anderson talked to Jim Sciutto about Rice, former National Security Advisor, being asked to name Trump transition team members, why she would or wouldn't, if those names were mentioned in security briefings, what the normal protocol is and whether this is all a distraction from the Trump/Russia investigation. Sciutto joined Gloria Borger, Mike Doran and Juliette Kayyem to hash this all out.

"Secretary of Everything Jared Kushner" was the chyron for the segment about what Kushner has been put in charge of, the people he's met and countries he's traveled to. Now Kushner is in Iraq. Anderson talked to Lt. Gen. Mark Herting, Amanda Carpenter and Jack Kingston about what Kushner's doing, is he a capable guy and how much should we worry. Right now the only positive thing they could say is that Trump's trusts and listens to him.

The Gorsuch SCOTUS nomination is being bandied up at Capitol Hill, the Dems are threatening a filibuster and the GOP is threatening the "nuclear option" which drops the total votes needed from 60 to 51. Sunian Serfaty had the report and a panel of 4 started to discuss. Only Jeffrey Toobin got a question and answer during this segment.

The fourth segment started with Anderson reviewing the whole Gorsuch mess and showed a bunch of clips of GOPers arguing against even considering Obama's choice of Merrick Garland last Spring. Now the rest of the panel - Borger, Carpenter and Christine Quinn - got to talk.

A judge in Kentucky has decreed that a lawsuit against Trump for inciting violence may proceed. The lawsuit was brought by someone assaulted at a Trump rally last year. Gary Tuchman's report included many clips of Trump clearly inciting violence and promising to pay for legal fees.

The second hour started just like the first one.

There's a YouTube video of Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks wondering if "CNN = Bull$hit Factory". She points to several examples of Trump parrots on CNN saying stupid things; Anderson is in one of the examples. At this point the video has about 170,000 views but I wonder if anyone at CNN or 360 saw it. Or maybe it's just coincidence that today Lord and McEnany just weren't available and they couldn't find more pundits to make the panels gargantuan.

ATA, thanks for the piece from the NYT. Yes, Zucker, I know who Jeffrey Lord and Kaleith McEnany are and that's one reason why I switch to Hayes whenever I see them introduced. Same deal for massive panels.

Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon rightly called the Susan Rice/Trump 'leak controversy' nothing but a phony diversion tactic by the Trumpies and the GOP. Meanwhile, AC was only too happy to dig into the story as if it were anything BUT that. He jumps all over anti-Obama Administration nonsense by Trump/GOP.

Gawd, Jeff Zucker is the worst. Yes, we know who McEnany & Lord are and they're both repulsive liars but apparently Zucker's drama series is more important to him than CNN's journalistic credibility.